March 24th, 1812
My name is Ezekiel Harrison Hayden, and I have recently been diagnosed with a sickness I fear will take me far before death will.
In the words of my doctor, my brain is deteriorating, and I am now losing my own memory and sense of self.
It had been recommended to me to keep to a journal, to ease my pain and have a physical reminder of thoughts I may lose.
To be restrained to writing my life on paper, surely I have already lost myself.
I have been told by my doctor this will ease my descent, that I won’t just lose all sense of self in one fell swoop. Yet, I know not what would be a worse fate, to go at once or slowly fall from grace.
But to rely on a simple journal to keep myself…mySELF? Someone such as I could never keep to such silly activities. Such innate and downright absurd living is for those weaker than I.
In truth, I fully believe that even my doctor does not know what he is speaking of. I’m thirty six years of age, and to lose one’s memory? So early? Simply impossible.
My job at the law firm won’t keep me on anymore.
Firing me on the lousy grounds of me being a “liability”. They think that this diagnosis means that I cannot hold my own in the court of law. Just simply wrong.
I have such a high success rate with my clients. And yet, dear diary, hear I sit, bottle of liquor in my hand and half of it’s contents already within me, with no employer to speak of and no future goals aside from watching my own decline.
So now, dear book of my memories, it is just you and I and my bottles of scotch.
Until I forget that even you exist, I assume.
March 30th, 1812
I know not if it’s these walls I’ve been confined to, or the copious amounts of pills and alcohol swimming through my body, but I swear I’ve started hallucinating. Just last night as I lay in bed, listening to the dock workers unloading whatever shipments had come in through the day, I heard the floorboards outside of my bedroom creak, in such a way that I could not help but believe it to be someone walking outside of my door, towards my bedroom. I arose to check out my suspicions, and of course, upon checking the hallway to my kitchen, I found nothing that could have been the culprit. And yet…the feeling did not fade.
I entered my kitchen and poured myself another drink, and sat at my table for a moment. Staring out the window, I watched the dock workers, hard at work underneath the lamplight. I imagine their journeys at sea, what curiosities they may find on the waters, what adventure it must be to go to distant lands. I myself could never be found on a ship, for simply the thought makes my stomach tighten and my throat dry. And yet, I cannot help but find myself fascinated by that which terrorises me so. Through my thoughts, however, the lingering feeling that another soul was within my home. I could not shake the feeling that I was being watched. Like someone was just out of my sight.
Watching.
I had never once thought that losing myself would cause so much distress mentally.
My name is…
My name is Ezekiel Harrison Hayden.
April 18th, 1812
Earlier today, upon coming home from picking up my necessary medication and alcohol, dear diary I swore I saw someone in my kitchen window. They were looking right at me! I rushed in to confront my intruder but yet again, was at a loss at finding anyone within any room.
As I sat down to pour myself a drink, I realised that the bottle the alcohol was being poured from had not matched the empty bottles on my counter. They were all aged scotch and this was a cheap whiskey. I swear to you, as the breath leaves my lungs, that I had acquired the same bottle as I always had.
Alas, I will not dwell. As long as this does the trick of numbing my current state, I more than certainly will find no trouble in drinking it either way.
My name is Ezekiel Hayden.
April 23rd, 1812
I had locked myself out today, or so I had believed.
In a drunken stupor, I walked to the nearest bar as I had no more alcohol in the house and in honesty, I couldn’t remember where the liquor store was today. After a few hours of drinking and conversing with the local patrons, I returned home but couldn’t get my key to work the door, so I broke the glass to get in.
I was nearly immediately greeted by a man holding a rifle, hollering at me, questioning why I was breaking into his home and telling me he would kill me if I didn’t leave. I was ready to attack this man, lying to me in my own home. How dare he, tell me that this place in which I have lived for countless years not be my own home? And then, as if out of nowhere, the realisation hit like a train. This indeed was not my home. These walls were not mine. None of this place was even remotely familiar to me.
Needless to say, I came to my senses awfully quick and realised that he in fact was correct. Thankfully the man was kind enough to allow my apologies and had sent me on my way.
Returning home, however, I found that my key had no use in the door as it was ajar.
Entering my kitchen, I heard footsteps in the hallway again. I called out, asking who was in my house and instead of receiving an answer, I had a blood curdling scare. The footsteps, they grew in speed and ferocity, coming to my location. I fell to the ground and covered my head with my hands, waiting for the assailant to be on me, but the moment had not come. The running stopped, or atleast disappeared.
I waited until the sun rise to leave the kitchen and write this down.
I’m learning that in these moments of extreme, I feel like I’m my complete self again.
My name is Ezekiel, and I will prevail.
June 5th, 1812
I awoke today covered in blood. My hands and chest were smeared with a dry crimson and, dear diary, I can not even slightly recall why or how it had got there. I racked my brain for hours and could remember nothing. I remember sitting at the bar last night, talking to Clarice, a woman I had grown fond of over the past month, speaking of my illness and how she had lost her brother to the same thing only months prior. She was a writer for the local newspaper, I knew her name had been familiar to me and upon the realisation, we began speaking about her job, when she realised she was meant to write, what inspired her.
I dared to ask her to dinner a number of times, but I feared making her lose another person to this disease, so I chose to resist my own urges.
And now that I stare at myself, covered in a crimson of unknown source, I feel glad I had never allowed Clarice to get too close to me.
After stepping out of the bath, I was even more shocked to see that although it seemed it had washed off of me, looking in the mirror revealed that no, it had just spread even more.
My name is…oh my god.
According to these pages, my name is Ezekiel Hayden. What am I becoming?
August 1st, 1812(?)
Where am I? Where in the unholy ghost have I been relocated to? On what otherworldly plane has my body been brought to? For I know that this is not the disease speaking, but the place I find myself in now is not on earth.
I awoke and found myself in a small, four stone walled room, reminiscent of a jail cell. There was a doorway leading out of the room, but upon investigation I learned that it is pitch black beyond this room. Speaking of which, the only light within this room comes from a hole in the wall, close to the size of my torso. Looking through this hole is what confirmed my initial writing today. It seemed, from what I could observe, was that I was in a pillar shaped tower of sorts, possibly a jail even, out looking what I believe was an ocean. Looking down, I could see nothing except a vast and unending abyss that contained only the sound of waves. I could not see the waves, as looking down was nothing but black and fog, but I could hear the crashing against the building. To determine the depth would allow me the privilege of knowing more about this place, but that information seemed all but impossible to determine.
Looking up was a pitch black sky, nothing to be seen for as far as my vision could reach. From my angle, I could not determine either the top of this building, or even if there were more to it than just this section in which I had found myself.
I wish to find out more, to learn of anything more about this place.
I feel so awake now. I feel like I have a purpose, if only for this moment in time, to find an answer to the mountain of questions I now have.
The question that seemed to be in the forefront of my thoughts, however, was a simple one, yet one that filled me with a foreboding and ominous dread, which I could not figure why.
Where were the stars?
I plan to step into the dark hallway and investigate. Maybe I can find another soul here who may have some answers to this dilemma, for I know I can not be the only one here. I surely can not be the only living being within these walls.
Writing that had given me so much more fear than I had planned.
Date Unknown
I could not find anyone in the hallways, nor could I find a source of light. I stayed along the wall, looking for even another doorway, but I found nothing of import, only more blackness that consumed me the longer I stayed in it. My sanity slipped the longer I remained, so I began to make a mental map of my travel. I have no way of tracking extended periods of time, but I swear journal, I swear I was out there in the nothingness for two days at least.
This hellish plane of existence, I know not how my arrival came to pass. The only thing keeping me here, in body and in mind, is the belief that I will find an escape. I must find an escape.
The waves sound louder than usual now that I’ve returned to my room, and I think I could finally see a star in the sky.
It…it seems dimmer than what stars should be. The colour in it seems unlike any I have ever seen. Where would I begin to describe it? It looked as if it were a culmination of every colour, yet void of any. Staring into it gave me such peace, yet so much panic as well. I could not even begin to ascertain how long I found myself mesmerised by its appearance.
I know not what these changes mean, but I feel some odd fear over these small yet powerful developments.
Timeless Entry #2
It’s out there. In the darkness. And it’s coming closer by the second. I heard it as I awoke. Something was outside of my door, when I looked into the blackness, I swear to you that something was standing just outside of my vision. I felt like prey, as my predator stood above me, yet I had nowhere to run or hide.
I could feel it’s breath on my face as I stood frozen in place and in that moment. My very bones froze cold, my skin felt such heat that it surely would melt off the meat beneath. I accepted it as the thing that would kill me in that moment, almost as if it were destined to be that which will take my life, to my very core. Every fear I had ever felt, every moment of pain and anguish thats ever affected me felt as though they were culminating here in this moment, like the blood from that day, circling the drain.
Something inside of me told me it knew this as well. It could feel my very soul, it’s cold claws scraping at my existence and making me feel such madness that my previous diagnosis was not enough.
It wanted me to lose hope, to know that my life was in its hands, that it and it alone was allowing me to live. I was a rat in a maze. A prisoner in a jailers sick and twisted game of hide and seek.
I found my strength to back away suddenly, or it let go of me to continue it’s journey through the abyss. Something inside of me, the only thing I had in this moment, told me to look outside again. Not a voice, but some resonance that passed the words through me like a subconscious thought but with much more sentience. Upon peering out of the hole, I saw yet another factor that sent a ghostly chill up through my body.
More stars surrounded the original, all of them matching colour and intensity. They seemed to make a pattern now, fifteen of them in total, Somehow, even with such a low number to count, I could not for the life of me make the pattern make sense to me. I would look to one, and it would seem as though the others were moving, both multiplying and disappearing all in a single moment.
I sound insane. Reading these words are making me believe that the doctor was correct. Yet, this seems too…real. These could be the ramblings of a mad man, the good Lord knows that is probably the case, but I just can not seem to shake the feeling that this is more than the deterioration of one’s mind. I hope for the sake of every other human that is to live on any plane of existence that this is a falsehood, simply the machinations of someone who has finally gone mad.
Yet…what if?
I could see the water now. It was black from I believe immensity and enormity. And it was getting closer to my level. The speed at which it was rising and the rate, I know not when or if it will overtake me. There are floors above me, I know not how many, or how to reach them, but I fear that soon I may have to find out.
(Something was written on this page but it was so illegible that it looks like scribbles)
My final entry
Dear journal, I awoke today to the water in my room now. It’s up to my calves already, and I presume it will take this floor too soon.
I plan to venture into the dark and either find a new floor, or to drown in the rising tides, or even to be taken by whatever entity has been stalking me for this indiscriminate amount of time.
At least I get to decide how I depart the mortal plane, with my own sound mind to make these final decisions.
My name is Ezekiel Harrison Hayden, and I hope someday that someone reads these words and takes them for more than the ramblings of a mad man. I will take this journal with me, so that
On January 26th, 2021, the journal containing these pages was found by a group of cataphiles exploring a cave close to Jama Pekel (Hell Cave) in Slovenia. Aside from being dirty and a bit of ageing on the papers, the book seemed to be in near perfect condition. Upon investigation into the original authors writings, we were able to find a couple of odd discrepancies. The only thing we could find about an Ezekiel Hayden was one in 1812 that police were looking for as a prime suspect in the murder of one Clarice Joanna Thomasson. According to the police reports, Clarice was found in her bedroom, her head removed and her body drained of all blood. Odd shapes had been drawn on her walls and in the living room, there was a note, the words in an indeterminate language.
After showing the note to numerous linguistic specialists, three came back with the same findings.
The letters all matched that of other findings throughout history, dating back to even before that of Ezekiel Hayden. One note with matching writings had been found within the wreck of an English supply ship, another was found within an abandoned hospital, coincidentally within the same town of the Hayden incident,
Each piece of paper, containing the same damage and ageing, contained the same words. After being deciphered, it was quickly agreed upon that each sheet said these words.
“For soon, we will awaken Him.”